Town hall left in the dark about Fort Erie slots deal
The bombshell announcement that slot machines are not coming back to Fort Erie came as a surprise to those at town hall, because they were intentionally left out of the loop, according to the town’s chief administrative officer.
Horse racing in town is operated by Fort Erie Live Racing Consortium which has a seven-person board comprised largely of officials from Fort Erie Economic Development and Tourism Corp. The municipality has one seat at the table, via the town chief administrative officer, Tom Kuchyt. However, the consortium board hosted an emergency meeting outside its normal schedule, and Kuchyt was left on the sideline.
“The FELRC did not invite me or share meeting correspondence because they felt I had a conflict,” said Kuchyt, who noted that conflicts of interest are not declared in that manner. “Declaring a conflict is my decision to make at the time of the meeting, not theirs.”
Since he was not invited to the emergency meeting on Oct. 2, Kuchyt did not vote on the slots deal, and by extension, the town’s mayor and councillors were also all left without knowledge that a slots deal was even on the table.
Word of the secret slots deal remained under wraps for another eight days until Metroland began reporting about the existence of deals at other horse racing tracks. Two days after that, the province announced that
Fort Erie had in fact already signed a deal to accept financial support for horse racing, but not slot machines.
“This is all very unfortunate,” said Kuchyt. “The slots would have provided much needed employment opportunities, been an attractor and provided economic spinoffs for the community. I will be formally requesting information from the (consortium).” For their part, members of the consortium have said they were made to sign a strict nondisclosure agreement with the province which prevents them from revealing any details of the slots deal, because negotiations for slot machines are still ongoing with other horse racing tracks.